London has been battered by 50mph winds that have felled trees and caused travel chaos. Powerful gusts swept across the capital as the Met Office issued a yellow "be aware" weather alert for most of the country.

Plans for a new Europe-wide crackdown on smoking include a ban on menthol and larger written and picture warnings covering three-quarters of each cigarette packet.

The moves reinforce an existing Tobacco Products Directive and were hailed by EU Health and Consumer Commissioner Toni Borg as a new drive to make smoking less attractive.

Negotiations over the controversial plans have taken place with the tobacco industry and health campaigners for years, and they target the use in cigarettes, roll-ups and "smokeless tobacco products" of menthol, vanilla and strawberry. Such "characterising flavours" will be banned under the new legislation, if approved by Euro MPs and EU health ministers.

Current pictorial health warnings will more than double in size and the rules will extend to products not specifically covered so far, such as "electronic" cigarettes and herbal smoking products. Chewing and nasal tobacco will have to have specific labelling and controls on ingredients. An existing ban on "snus" - chewing tobacco - remains.

Mr Borg said: "The European Commission had promised a proposal on tobacco products by the end of 2012, and that's what I'm presenting today. The figures speak for themselves: tobacco kills half of its users and is highly addictive.

"With 70% of the smokers starting before the age of 18, the ambition of today's proposal is to make tobacco products and smoking less attractive and thus discourage tobacco initiation among young people".

He added: "Consumers must not be cheated: tobacco products should look and taste like tobacco products and this proposal ensures that attractive packaging and flavourings are not used as a marketing strategy."

Current rules are now more than a decade old and outdated, says the Commission. Significant changes have taken place in the sector, with new scientific evidence on the impact of flavourings used in tobacco, and clearer statistics about the effectiveness of health warnings.

The new proposed labelling rules would require a combined picture and text health warning covering 75% of the front and the back of cigarette packs, and current information on tar, nicotine and carbon monoxide - now considered misleading - would be replaced by a warning on the side of each pack noting that tobacco smoke contains more than 70 cancer-causing substances.

The plans will now be considered by the European Parliament and EU health ministers, with a target of adopting the new laws during 2014 and bringing them into force in 2015-16.